For those not familiar with the Water Resources Development Act, it is the legislation that authorizes the Corps of Engineers’ work on the major rivers of our nation. WRDAs have been enacted since 1974 and were the evolution of what was called the River and Harbor Acts that were enacted between 1824 and 1970. Both of these legislations have had an immense impact upon the health of our rivers, primarily in a negative way, for the almost exclusive purpose of exploiting them for economic development. It was not until the 1986 WRDA that there was any significant environmental concern through restoration efforts incorporated into the Corps mission.

What is WRDA

WRDA authorizes studies and projects within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) primary mission areas: 1) commercial navigation; 2) flood risk management; and 3) aquatic ecosystem restoration. The projects that are authorized, historically through an earmarking process, include locks, dams, levees, beach sand replenishment, river island building and channel dredging. WRDA can also affect, through the Corps permitting process, public and private structures and permitting process, public and private structures and infrastructure near, over, or under rivers.

In June 2014 Congress overwhelmingly passed the 2014 WRDA, which the President quickly signed into law. We talked about this WRDA in previous articles here and here last year. Most environmental and tax watchdog groups believe it is the worst WRDA ever. Business interests appear to love it. Not a surprise since environmental and tax watchdog groups were completely shut out of its drafting. So, how does the 2014 WRDA compare with the last WRDA Congress produced in 2007?

In spring 2008 I drafted an article reviewing the 2007 WRDA that was never printed but provides a snap shot of what I thought of that last WRDA. The articles opening paragraph is below:

The 2007 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), at $23 billion, is a strong signal of the serious problems with the process, both within the Corps of Engineers and Congress. The bill increases the backlog to well over 1000 projects estimated to cost nearly $80 billion that could take up to 40 years to clear at an annual construction appropriation level of $2 to $2.5 billion.… Read the rest

1. Introduction – What we have wrought on our Midwestern rivers

Row crop agriculture has always been intricately tied to the promotion of barge navigation on our large Midwestern rivers, primarily for exporting corn, wheat and more recently soybeans. Agricultural interests were heavy promoters pushing to change our rivers into barge canals and to this day continue to lobby for expansions of the system.

Because none of our rivers are deep enough for their full lengths for the minimum nine-foot drafts required for towboats used, especially during low flow periods, engineers called for alterations on an unprecedented scale to create an adequate channel depth and width for these over-sized barges. Conveniently, the river alterations actually reinforced the connection with agriculture by easing the conversion of floodplains to cropland, in some locations creating new land that was immediately placed into agriculture.

On the Missouri River this involved constructing massive dams upstream and then shortening, straightening and narrowing the lower portion of the river to the point that it has little resemblance to the original river. About 522,000 acres of floodplain and riverine habitat were lost through the process of constructing a nine-foot channel; all of that acreage altered and much of it, as well as land along the river created by the process, became levee-protected corn and soybean fields.

Congress authorized the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to channelize the river several times. The final iteration of this process is called the Bank Stabilization and Navigation Project began inthe early 1950s and was completed about 1981, paid for by taxpayer funding. Massive impacts to river habitats have resulted.

Much the same has occurred in the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) and Illinois River from the construction of the nine-foot channel there. In the areas north of St. Louis where the rivers are not consistently deep enough they were impounded with locks, which are low-head type dams constructed solely for navigation purposes creating pools rather than flowing rivers (See Figure 2).

The alterations constructed below St. Louis in the Mississippi River were much the same as Those built within the Missouri River. Again, the floodplains were the site of large losses of natural habitat, and remaining floodplains were turned into flattened monoculture-row crop landscapes protected from the river by levees.… Read the rest

How regulations save money, create jobs and protect the public

You have all probably noticed this phenomenon; Americans (or at least a portion of us) are always going to war. I am not speaking of those actual wars we have had over the last couple of decades but the other ones like the “war on drugs”, “war on poverty”, “war on Christmas”, “war on coal”, etc. The only thing we seem not to have a war on is, well, war.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is gearing up for its eternal war on regulations. This appears to occur more often when there is a Democratic president. The intent is to counter the alleged tendency of lame duck presidents to establish a legacy of concern for people and the environment through new regulations that would protect and preserve them.

According to a December 5, 2013 article from the Insurance Journal there’s a “Flood of Regulations Coming from Obama Administration” and the Chamber is going to save us from this flood. Since I think a lot about floods I thought I should look into this one.… Read the rest

A new trade agreement that has been negotiated in secret for seven years called the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP began to emerge out of the shadows last month. The few, leaked portions of the TPP have enraged citizens across the planet because of the power it removes from citizens and their governments and gives to private corporations.

Trade negotiators representing more than 600 corporations have also pushed for “fast track” authority which would gut Congress’ ability to read the provisions of the agreement – and force them to vote on it without knowing its contents.

The TPP may appear to be a topic far-a-field from the rivers I normally focus on, however, many connections link global trade, the rivers and overseas shipping. The grain and energy shippers use the rivers to transport a large portion of their commodities abroad. Some of these shippers are transnational corporations that have subsidiaries in other countries and are shipping products back to the U.S. Trade is, and has long been, primarily about the profits of corporations and there are powerful people who believe that exploiting the rivers to an even higher degree is key to increasing the efficiency of our trading capability.… Read the rest

When special interests wanted to narrow, dam, shorten and channelize our rivers for their benefit they never had any problem with spending the public’s money with reckless abandon and without regard for any natural resource or fiscal consequences. Those barge, grain, chemical and coal interests who have pressured lawmakers for levees, dams, wing dikes and dredging have suddenly gained a fiscal conscience about the public’s money and now spend much of their time lobbying to stall or stop programs aimed at mitigating river damage, while second guessing advice offered by river ecological experts or those who opposed the river’s destruction in the first place.

The Missouri River is the victim of all this damming, shortening and channelization, primarily through what is commonly called the Pick-Sloan Project. Taxpayers foot the bills. Contained within the 1944 Flood Control Act, as amended, is the following list of eight purposes for the Missouri River:

Ever since the “Great Recession” began in 2009 I have wondered whether it might affect the making of important policy decisions. There is some precedence for concern when we look back on some decisions made during the Great Depression, especially regarding large-scale projects. Dams built on the Columbia River (Grand Coulee Dam), Colorado River (Hoover and Parker Dams), the upper Missouri River (Fort Peck Dam), the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) and the Illinois River (the majority for each) were products of that era’s desperate need to generate jobs and rebuild the country’s economy. But in retrospect, were they good deals?

In reality, this is a difficult question to answer because Congress does not have a process for fully evaluating the actual benefits and impacts resulting from these facilities, so we really do not know if they were worth the costs. We are placed in the uncomfortable position of trusting Congress and assuming, without evidence, that these projects were worth it. However, we do know that far too often the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) who plans, designs and manages the construction of many of these projects, exaggerates benefits, underestimates the costs, and does not adequately, or at all, include the cost of the damage, especially lost ecosystem services.… Read the rest

Unexpected direct and indirect actions affected the process surrounding the approval, development and construction of a facility to replace the original Locks and Dam 26 on the Mississippi River at Alton, Illinois, which significantly altered how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers planned their projects after 1970. The facility that became known as the Melvin Price Locks and Dam (named after the local Congressional Representative who was involved in getting it built) was at the forefront of the transition from a Corps that had very little oversight and essentially zero public input, to an agency operating increasingly under the skeptical scrutiny of the public. The Melvin Price project was equally important in the transition away from a process that ignored the impact of large-scale projects on the environment.

Had it not been for the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 citizens would not have the rights they have today to engage in the project planning process and to gain access to government documents that allow them to fully understand why a project is being planned, how much it might really cost, who it primarily benefits, and whether there will be public benefits. Maybe most importantly, the law provided a stick that the public could use to protect the environment and counter the growing influence of special interests on the use of their taxes.… Read the rest

A huge block of concrete looms in the Mississippi River just south of Alton, Illinois. It’s the Melvin Price Locks and Dam, and its story flows like a reality TV show. The US Corps of Engineers (Corps) had plans to build the $1 billion project completely under the public’s radar; but a burning river, leaking oil platforms and toxic housing sites helped derail the rush for the big dam.

First some background on who does what on our rivers.

Since before our nation was formed, the Corps has been considered by many as the premier waterways organization in North America. It started by surveying and mapping our rivers, then clearing the rivers of tree snags for steamboats, and finally by constructing navigation dams and locks to accommodate much larger steel barges.

The Corps does not have the sole responsibility for our rivers though. Instead, several agencies share jurisdiction for what occurs in and near our rivers. The Corps is generally responsible for river navigation on what shippers call the Inland Waterways System (IWS), flood risk reduction (a more accurate and modern term for flood control), and building and managing reservoirs (especially in the central and eastern U.S.). It also has other shared responsibilities for recreation and water supply. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been charged with protecting our rivers from pollution since its creation in December 1970. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has responsibility for maintaining and operating national fish and wildlife refuges in our rivers including the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) Fish and Wildlife Refuge, created in 1924, which stretches north 284 miles from Rock Island, IL to Lake City, MN.

Most of the 30 navigation locks and dams that make up the UMR portion of the Inland Waterways System were authorized by Congress. The Corps managed lock and dam construction during the 1930’s as a jobs program to help move the nation out of the economic woes of the Great Depression. Locks and Dam 26 at Alton, Illinois, completed in 1938, was the first to contain two locks, one 600-foot long and the other 300-foot long. See our webpage here for additional information on the Corps and their work on our rivers.

Expansion of Locks and Dam 26

Because of increased barge traffic, by the mid-1950’s the upper Mississippi barge industry was asking the Corps to construct a 1,200-foot lock at the dam at Alton.… Read the rest

Imagine your spouse is in charge of your checking account and instead of deducting all checks written, was instead adding a portion of them to the account total. What would be the result?

At a minimum, you would receive a jarring message from your banker telling you that your account is overdrawn. At worst, you could be in a serious financial situation leading to bankruptcy.

This poorly managed checkbook is a simplistic analogy of how we run our nation’s economy.

Since World War II the U.S., and most other countries for that matter, use the methodology of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to account for our nation’s financial transactions. GDP actually does a pretty good job of tracking those. Unfortunately, it was expanded to also try to monitor economic well being despite the warnings from Nobel Prize winner Simon Küznets, the economist who developed GDP and who advised Congress “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined (by the GDP). Goals for more growth should specify of what and for what.”

GDP totally fails to account for the losses or the degradation of our renewable natural resources including losses in wetlands, soil fertility, prime farmland, old-growth forests, rivers, aquifers, and fisheries. It also ignores the diminishing of our nonrenewable resources including metals, minerals and petroleum. Further, as hard as it might be to believe, GDP considers money spent dealing with floods, forest fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, crop failure, illness and disease (such as cancer), auto accidents, and even war as positive economic activities despite their negative impact upon the physical realities of the planet and its inhabitants.… Read the rest

I recently attended an Upper Mississippi River (UMR) Lock & Dam workshop hosted by the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) in Bettendorf, IA. More than 60 people attended; the vast majority represented the agricultural and barge industries, UMR state DOT agencies and other people tied to the Inland Waterways System (IWS). The primary goal for the workshop was to “develop a unified vision for the action plan” for improving the UMR Inland Waterways System (IWS) for the benefit of those who use and make a living from the system.

Sounds like a good idea, right? This is a group of generally like-minded people, all benefiting in one way or another from shipping commodities on the UMR and working on a plan to improve their situation. Or, more accurately stated: working to increase their personal or corporate benefits by expanding the taxpayer 90% subsidy for a mode of transportation that cannot demonstrate profitability on its own and is extremely damaging to the rivers.… Read the rest